Lewis N. Dembitz, D.H.L.

Counselor at Law, Louisville, Ky.

ACCEPTANCE –
In law, the assent by one party to an offer made by another, or to any act which becomes operative only by such assent; in commerce, the question whether the assent has been given before the withdrawal of the offer or incomplete...

ACCESSORIES –
Definition. In English and American law an accessory is a person who, without committing a criminal act with his own hands, or without even being present, aiding and abetting the criminal, nevertheless shares in the guilt of the...

ACCIDENT –
Philosophic Notion. Term used in philosophy to express a characteristic of an object or notion which does not necessarily follow from its nature and is not essential to its concept, but is connected with the object as an...

ACCUSATORY AND INQUISITORIAL PROCEDURE –
Two methods by which persons suspected of crime may be tried. In the Inquisitorial method the judges or other officials seek to draw from the suspected person an acknowledgment of guilt by examining him regarding all the...

ACQUITTAL IN TALMUDIC LAW –
Composition of Jewish Court The Jewish court for hearing capital offenses was composed of twenty-three judges, and according to the opinion of many sages, even offenses of a lower degree, such as were punishable by stripes only,...

ADOPTION –
The adrogatio of the older Roman law—a legal process by which a man can create betweenhimself and a person not his child relations that properly belong only to father and child—is unknown to both Biblical and Talmudic law. But...

AGENCY, LAW OF –
The Law of Agency deals with the status of a person (known as the agent) acting by direction of another (the principal), and thereby legally binding the principal in his connection with a third person. The person who binds a...

AGNATES –
In Roman law, kindred on the paternal side only: the word is used in contradistinction to cognati, kindred on the mother's as well as on the father's side.In Jewish law, the right of inheritance, based on the written law (Num....

ALIBI –
A form of defense by which the accused undertakes to show that he was elsewhere when the crime was committed. Such a defense could of course be made in the criminal procedure of the ancient Jews: for witnesses were admitted for...

ALIENATION AND ACQUISITION –
The act of causing a thing to become the property of another—Alienation—is, in Roman and English law, the general term under which the change of title by gift, sale, or barter is treated. The rabbinical law looks at the transfer...

ALMEMAR –
Corrupted from the Arabic al-minbar, "the chair," "the pulpit," is an elevated platform in the synagogue, on which the desk stands for reading the lessons from the Pentateuch and Prophets. In the synagogues following the Spanish...

APPRAISEMENT –
The setting of a value by a court of justice either upon property, or upon damage done to person or property. It differs from Estimate (Hebrew ), the fixing of values by the Law itself.The Appraisement of damages, or "measure of...

ASSAULT AND BATTERY –
An English law term for injury to the person—a crime recognized from the earliest stages of human law. Disputes about property, about contracts, or about the rights of man in the family or in society, arose later in the course...

BAIL –
In English and American law, the obligation of sureties in a sum named, that the person under arrest in a civil or criminal cause will, if set at large, deliver himself up to stand trial and submit to judgment. Such obligation...

BAILMENTS –
Delivery of personal property for the purpose of a trust. A bailment arises when one person (the bailee) is lawfully put in the possession of goods belonging to another (the bailor) with the understanding that he will return...

BANKRUPTCY –
In modern law, the proceeding taken by the courts of justice with regard to debtors unable to pay their debts in full, when all the creditors become parties to the proceeding. The object of bankruptcy laws is twofold: first,...

BARTER –
The exchange of things of value, none of them being money. Barter is distinguished from a sale, where one of the things is money. As trading must have existed long before even the rudest kind of money was invented, Barter must...

BASTARD –
In the English use of the word, a child neither born nor begotten in lawful wedlock; an illegitimate child. There is no Hebrew word of like meaning. The mamzer, rendered "bastard" in the A. V., is something worse than an...

BROKER –
One who acts as middleman between seller and buyer, or makes it his business to bring buyer and seller together; also one who acts as agent for hire. The Neo Hebrew word for broker is "sirsur." It occurs with the former and more...

BURDEN OF PROOF –
In law, the obligation resting upon one or other of the parties to a suit to bring proof of a fact when the opposite party alleges the contrary. The Talmudic phrase is "'alaw ha-rayah" (on him is the proof). Of course, the...

BURGLARY –
Biblical Data: In English and American law burglary is the offense of breaking into a dwelling-house at night, with the intent to commit a felony, generally with the intent to steal. The Biblical passage on the subject (Ex....

CHATTELS –
In English and American law property is divided into two kinds: real or landed, and personal or chattels; in Continental law, into immovable and movable. Jewish law speaks of "ḳarḳa'ot" (ground) and "miṭṭalṭelin" (movables)....

COMMERCIAL LAW –
According to Jewish law persons legally capable of entering into any form of contract are legally capable of making commercial contracts also; but it must not be forgotten that girls reach majority at twelve and boys at...

COMMUNITY, ORGANIZATION OF –
Ancient and Medieval: At the beginning of the common era there were Jewish communities at Alexandria, Rome, Salamis, Corinth, Athens, Delos, etc.; at Antioch (in Pisidia), Iconium, Smyrna, Ephesus, and other well-known cities on...

CONTEMPT OF COURT –
Disrespectful demeanor before, or disobedience of, a public authority. Courts of justice must be treated with respect, and their orders must be obeyed; therefore they have in all countries the power to punish acts of disrespect,...